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Is Hell, Eternal Torture?

Discussion in '2004 Archive' started by Caissie, Mar 28, 2004.

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  1. Hell is eternal torture

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  2. Hell is not eternal torture

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  3. Other (please explain)

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Multiple votes are allowed.
  1. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    double post.
     
  2. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    I know well what these are including the historical roots and usage of each. They also don't help win your argument. Biblical Scholars can't even agree to their relavance or meaning. And that's because they can't make them work with an eternal tormenting type hell.

    I don’t know who you have been reading. But they sure aren’t scholars. maybe JW”s.

    You have no idea how to provide the same level of evidence for the meaning of hell as used in context that I presented. So now you are trying to argue definitions without even showing how the definition will change my evidence from scripture or define your argument without accepting the Catholic version of Hell.

    your usage clearly indicates that you don’t have a clue what the differences are. It does no good to debate with someone who has not studied and does not understand the differences. You can’t debate a basic ignorance. There is nothing to debate when you do not even know the basic meanings of those words. But a simple theological dictionary or Bible dictionary would take care of that.

    SO....
    Please explain the difference between Sheol and Hades and Gehenna without sounding like a Catholic. Once you try, you will fail at finding any meaning that would not be better understood by reading the single word "hell" in context in the King James Version. [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Those three words do not mean the same thing. Why waste my time on the KJV when it is the Greek and Hebrew text quite clearly. If you don’t know where they are then pull out your Greek and Hebrew concordances. If you will look in a decent Bible dictionary you will find the definitions. Or you can look online. It does no good for me to waste my time rewriting what you can find there. .

    You are asking me to do your homework. Again by asking me to define Sheol and Hades and Gehenna you clearly don’t know that there is a difference. Just take a look in a reputable Bible dictionary and you will find the Jewish idea of those. There is a difference.
     
  3. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    qb, this is the reason I just gave up. I have never seen someone pull scriptures out of context, nor have I seen such poor scholarship of the Bible.

    When I was in college, I knew MORE than anybody. I was getting into Newspaper and Radio news reporting. I was going to change the world. I was going to expose corruption. I got sued in civil court. I grew up quickly. :eek:
    </font>[/QUOTE]Yes I can see. I am wondering by the theology present if they are not JW's in Baptist clothes.
     
  4. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    Uneducated JW's at that. ;)
     
  5. Caissie

    Caissie New Member

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    A lawer once told me (using the O.J. Simpson case with Mark Fuhrman as an example) that law schools teach that if you can't discredit the evidence, try and discredit (attack) the person.
    When you do not battle scripture with scripture and you start attacking people, then any trained eye will see that you are loosing your case.
     
  6. Audra

    Audra New Member

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    I was going to send out more scripture, but why should I? All we have here are people who shoot down scripture, saying it's out of context, without even reading it.
     
  7. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    Caissie, its spelled "l-o-s-i-n-g".

    Audra, I have read every single scripture you are quoting, probably since you were in diapers. YOU are reading it out of context. What is it about "eternal punishment" that you do not understand?
     
  8. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    You have such a poor grasp of the scripture you are quoting, it does no good to quote you scripture. In fact, I started this whole thing by giving you a LOT of scripture which you choose to ignore. Then you come back with scripture (many of the same ones I just gave you) pulling it so far out of context and with a complete lack of understanding.

    You cannot even get straight the difference between punishment and destruction "on earth", let alone eternal punishment; how in the world do you expect us to be able to debate with you if you cannot understand basic Bible 101?
     
  9. Charles Meadows

    Charles Meadows New Member

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    This is a good one - I think!

    I'd have to come down against annihilationist interpretation. This really an argument of necessity for seeing all things been "new" - how could things be new and pure if sinners were still around. As such there is no contextual biblical support.

    In case nobody has mentioned this gehenna is a BAD placed. Its a hellenization of the valley of the sons of Hinnom - where children were supposedly sacrificed to Molech. Ugh! As such a reference to gehenna is a reference to eternal punishment. This is a place for the bodies AND souls of those who will spend eternity away from God.

    Hades was a place known to the ancient Greeks where a soul went after death - notthe same as Gehenna.

    Sheol is quite different still. The early hebrews really didn't speak much about death or the afterlife - as such the concept of Sheol is not simple. It is a place of gloom where there is no rejoicing. But some of the later Psalms speak of in a little different light - likely reflecting a change in the pattern of though regarding the afterlife. During the second temple periods we begin to see ALOT more writing about death, spirits, and the afterlife. Alot was also written in the apocryphal or pseudepigraphal works like the Sybilline Oracles, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, Tobit, Sirach to name some specific ones.

    A summary might be that the bible speaks of hell as a place of ETERNAL suffering. Whether or not it will be hot or just dark I don't know - the bible mentions both.

    By the way, will teeth be passed out so the toothless sinners can gnash their teeth?

    Hades is see
     
  10. The Right Way

    The Right Way New Member

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    Thank you Charles for helping your brothers who could no longer support their argument by finding any errors of annihilationists, like myself and others here.

    So let's continue. According to your view, if a person dies Post Christ's sacrifice. Do you think the NT is telling us that this person may go to either Heaven, Hades, Gehenna, or Sheol, or a combination of them?
    If you answer yes, then you are saying that there are additional options available to man besides accepting Jesus as his savior or not. In other words, there is a sliding scale of sin for the unsaved that would provide different types of punishment etc in hell. Some that are not so bad when compared to other types of hell punishment. So man could reject Jesus, but be a nice person and not incure as harsh a punishment as a say a Hitler.

    The problem with this type of belief is that sin would then be subject to a "gray area" in which some sin is not as bad in God's eyes as other sin. This opens the possiblility that Hell may not be such a bad place in one rejects Christ's sacrifice but is a regular Mother Teresa in all other parts of his life.

    In fact, the early Greeks thought Hades had a section that was a rather very nice place to be in. That it had various layers depending on how bad the person was or how much "bad karma" had been worked off by the lower levels of hades.

    The Catholics have a similar view. What is your view. Are there various types of hell one can end up in? And what would cause one to end up in different types of hell?
     
  11. Charles Meadows

    Charles Meadows New Member

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    In my opinion, based on reading the scriptures, there is one Hell, reserved for those who reject Christ. There is no purgatory, no annihilation, no gradation of hell.

    Gehenna, with its reference to Hinnom, is simply put - hell. I think the KJB rendering is not wrong. Hades itself was not seen by the GREEKS as a hell as Christians would see it - but I think the word is not necessarily used in this context.

    Sheol is something different. This term refers to a place of the dead. Arguably the pre-exile Jews didn't really have the knowledge of eternmal life that we do - as we see the description of Sheol changing a little in various verses. I think that Sheol is a term that typifies the belief about death and not necessarily an actual place as the conception of life after death in the NT is definitely not consistent with the OT sheol.
     
  12. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    Just because someone chooses not to answer someone who is obviously having a LOT of difficulty understaning the Bible and seperating Earthly prophecy from After-Life prophecy does not mean they have run out of arguments.

    I refer you back to my first post on this stream. Where I and others provided lists of scriptures that are extremely CLEAR.

    I ask for the fourth time: What is it about "eternal punishment" that you do NOT understand? :confused: :eek:
     
  13. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    Let me also add. There are some battles worth fighting and some not worth fighting. I have chosen this as a battle not worth fighting---why? Because the beliefs of Baptists have been well known for centuries in an "eternal hell", "eternal punishment" if one does not accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.

    Simple, go back and look at the votes. My guess is that the ones who voted for a "burnt up" style of eternal punishment are either liberal college students or they are very young and they have a NEW message to straighten out all of the older scholars on the board who have been incorrect in their Biblical interpretation since Jesus was on Earth.

    This is specifically the reason that GB mentioned that they are probably JW in sheeps clothing. THis is NOT a Baptist Doctrine and for the life of me I am surprised it is even debated on this board, especially in the Baptist Only section.

    This is not a minor issue like pre-trib vs. post-trib in which both believe in the diety of Jesus Christ and the reason for HIS sacrifice to us.

    This is a question about whether Jesus even had to suffer because if your theory is correct it casts doubts on that requirement.

    I am not "even" going to fight that battle with some kids who are standing proud in their New Age revelation that there is not eternal punishment.

    If you want Biblical proof, simply go back to the front page and read all of the scriptures listed. ANY COMMON SENSE will show a person who is literate (and seeing the kids coming out of high-school today--I do question literacy today in America) can understand that the Lord Jesus Christ IS INDEED discussing "ETERNAL PUNISHMENT".

    After reading the Biblical references by those who believe the "burnt up" theory, it is very clear to most of the scholarly posters that whoever posts these has very little understanding, nor can they even collate what they are quoting and reading. With the obvious lack of scholarly understanding our arguments will fall on deaf ears. So, the argument is moot. For the fifth time I ask: "What is it about "eternal punishment" that you do not understand? End of story.

    This has NOTHING to do with personal attacks, only obvious lack of understanding that WE are not going to be able to get beyond, no matter how many scriptures we provide. So, why fight the battle?
     
  14. The Right Way

    The Right Way New Member

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    So for all intent and purposes, you will agree that there is really just one type of hell that we would need to refer to when dealing with the after death situation for the unsaved.

    I take it that the the others would also agree with your statements since they didn't seem to disagree with your post nor attempt to show why we would need to consider the other two in this argument.

    Assuming each of you are in agreement then, we are back to my prior argument which then seeks the definition in context of scripture. How would you argue that hell used in context is an eternal torment which would require an eternal life attribute which is granted only be being saved? How do you justify redefining the words "perish", "Death", and all the examples of such definitions as per context in scripture?

    It takes accepting vast conflicts in scripture as well as twisting meanings to mean the exact opposite in order to create a everlasting torment type hell, rather than accepting a simple "death" type hell which any first grader would understand by the very sentences used. Are we to believe that the Bible was written for theologians and Biblical scholars, or for the simple man of God?
     
  15. The Right Way

    The Right Way New Member

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    I answered this before.

    Dictionary definitions follows:

    Eternal: perpetual
    Punishment: A penalty imposed for wrongdoing:

    A perpetual penalty would be the exact definition. Where do you see the type of penalty imposed here? I don't see the word torment anywhere. I do see the word death and perish almost always associated with this punishment or penalty. The punishment is DEATH.

    I have two more for you...

    Death: The termination of life.
    Perish: To die or be destroyed.

    In John 3:16 and many many other verses that speak of the option man has, one being everlasting life and the other Death (perish). Then this the normal death of the body, is not the same death that the author is talking about because man still dies if he believes in Jesus even though he has eternal life. So the Death that they must be referring to is the death of the spirit or what would amount to the "new body". So either the spirit will continue to live or death will follow, depending on the judgment of Christ, upon the initial death of the body.
     
  16. Charles Meadows

    Charles Meadows New Member

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    Right Way,

    Probably not everyone will agree with me 100%...

    Hell is described in may ways in the bible (as well as in some extrabiblical books) - all of them extreme.

    Mk 9:44 "Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched."

    Mt 8:12 "...shall be cast into outer darkness."

    Lk 16:23 "...and in hell he lift up his eyes being in torments..."

    The book of Enoch (I think it's Enoch - I'm away from my library) describes black fire in hell!

    The point is not that there will necessarily be fire (regular fire, black or otherwise) - but there may be! The piont is there will be torment and distance from God. The summation of all the applicable verses indicates perpetual torment.

    As I said I think that most people who have written in the past about annihilationsim really did so out of a vision of everything being new - not with a bunch of sinners still hanging around somewhere.

    Regarding "perish" and "death". These are extreme words - for an extreme fate. But as I said NOT every verse about hell can be absolutely literal. It seems clear to me from Jesus' teachings specifically that hell is antithetical to heaven and thus not temporally limited.
     
  17. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    Thank you Charles, but I think you are arguing on deaf ears. The few people who believe this obviously have a later-day revelation (probably from a Jehovah's witness missionary) as to "hell" and the Bible.

    If they wish to go against 99% of all Bible scholars who claim to be Christians then, so be it.

    A rude awakening will be the result.

    We have quoted the same scriptures in the first of this column until each of us are blue in the face and most scholars and pastors have left this thread because of the futility of trying to explain something to students who know more than their teachers or educated adults posting on this board.

    They do not understand the Biblical definition of "spirital death" and how it relates to eternity without God. They will not accept that the Bible says Eternal Punishment. Obviously, They can read a dictionary, but when they start quoting scripture they loose their scholarship very quickly.

    The bottom line is that there would be no reason for Jesus to go through the suffering He did if Hell wasn't eternal punishment. They ignore the scriptures that say Wailing and gnashing of teeth. I guess they assume that this is taking place as a person dies. Obviously, if hell is at hot as described in the Bible, the person wouldn't live long enough to wail or gnash their teeth, they would be consumed instantly. So, their theory is shot down there. They ignore the Rich man and Lazarus. Obvious consciousness. Jesus would not tell it this way and warn people about it if it were not true. The rich man wouldn't be begging for someone to go back and witness to his brothers if there was instant death because he wouldn't be conscious to even think about it.

    Their "hang up" is they say that "spiritual death" is instant death. What they do not understand is that Jesus was very, very clear that the death discussed is existence without God. That truly would be death in its extreme form. Why bother to witness otherwise.

    Frankly, I'm still surprised that the board moderators are letting this argument continue after they shut off a person who spoke out against God. This goes against Biblical principles upheld by Baptists and New Testament churches since Christ was on Earth. But, I do not run the board and if the owners wish to allow this to continue, then I do not fault them. I do not have the edit capability they have, and they are paying for the server, much like I pay for my servers and have full autonomy within the limits of the law to let anything I want on my site.

    Personally, at the very least, I would think this thread would be moved to the debate areas outside of the Baptist only sites, because JW's are NOT Baptist.
     
  18. Phillip

    Phillip <b>Moderator</b>

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    I answered this before.
    </font>[/QUOTE]


    Why would Jesus be so concerned about cutting off a limb, if you were going to die instantly?

    Why would He even bother to say "everlasting fire" if that was not important to whoever He was speaking to?


    Everlasting Punishment. Hmmmmmmm, put those two definitions that you delivered together and guess what---you have punishment that goes on and on and on and on. Yes, the Bible uses "death". If you conscious "apart" from God, then you are dead. Look at the way Paul uses death. "Dead to sin". But still alive. Death is not something that you can describe because you have not been there yet, but Jesus always describes it as "eternal punishment", "where their worm dieth not"....why would He even make these remarks if they were not true?


    Here again the judgement is "eternal" it goes on and on. It does not end.



    If you cannot understand this, then you need to take remedial English.



    Wow, conciousness for a sinner who is in a place of "torment".


    The Bible says non-christians will find themselves in a place prepared for the devil and his angels. What is it you do not understand about "they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."?


    Even the Old Testament admits "their worm does not die."

    Hmmmmmm somebody knows more than you and your later-day revelation.

    I bet you feel so good having figured out something that church fathers and scholars have wrongly believed for thousands of years. You are sooooo smart. Like I said, when I was in college I was sooooo smart, I was into radio and newspaper news. I was going to save the world. I was going to expose all of the corruption. I was going to straighten people out in their wrong beliefs. I got sued.

    The Websters definition of death comes from our view of death. The person's life ends. God's view of death comes from HIS side and point of view. Existence in eternal torment and without God IS DEATH. THE SECOND DEATH. (Notice that the first death does not end consciousness---so, neither does the second.)

    You just want to feel good about the fact that you think that being a non-believer does not matter. It must be nice to be so much smarter than 99% of the historical church fathers!
     
  19. The Right Way

    The Right Way New Member

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    Phillip,
    I never said I didn't believe in "eternal punishment", you did that. I believe that eternal punishment is death. Death tends to be eternal. And being sperated from God through death, is punishment.

    BTW. Stop your personal attacks by claiming me a fraud and a liar by witnessing to people that I'm a JW. You are only making yourself look bad with these false personal attacks. I'm 100% Baptist. So once again, you are wrong in what you thought you were correct on.

    I didn't call you a Catholic because you believed in "levels" of hell. I trust you are a Baptist even if you are confused about the definition of death and perish.
     
  20. The Right Way

    The Right Way New Member

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    Apperantly not, the verse (and chapter) you refer to about the worms are not talking about the bodies of men in "hell" but rather human bodies that God just struck down that were dead and rotting on the ground ON earth. It is a battle field scene, not a hell scene. When men die and are left on the battle field to rot, worms do eat the body. And those worms don't die, they turn into the common housefly. That leaves us with the unending Fire, as the rest of the Bible has defined very well as "Destruction and Death", a state that is forever occuring on earth until the end time.

    Hmmmmmm maybe sombody knows more than you and your old outdated revelation.
     
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